Let the rest go…

     My biggest fear about committing to 100 days of blog posts is running out of things to write about and the root of that is perfectionism. The whole point of writing is to write - no crank out 100 brilliant, prize winning pieces of prose. I get stuck on should way to much, and if there’s one piece of advice I can pass on from an excellent therapist I had, it is we have got to stop “shoulding” on ourselves.
     Should is a trap. We get all gummed up in it and become emotionally constipated - obsessed with perceived expectations and guilt for not meeting them. We think about what others want for us or from us, and about what other people are achieving and then fixate on all the ways we are falling short. It doesn’t get us anywhere productive and we just end up feeling like shit. 
    Take today for example: I’m wearing my stretchy pants and contemplating going to yoga at 8:15 (that’s an hour and fifteen minutes away). Now, I do enjoy yoga but there are a lot of days that I just don’t feel physically up to the challenge. I could do something else like take an easy walk on my treadmill with IFIT, which I equally enjoy, but I’m thinking “I should go to yoga.” I wrote it on the calendar, I went to one session two weeks ago, and I promised myself I would do more yoga. What will the teacher think? Am I a failure because I can’t make my body do yoga every Tuesday?
    The truth is, the teacher probably has a million things on her mind (the least of which is me), and even if she does happen to think I’m a loser, that’s not my issue - it’s hers. I know that my body has good days and bad. I know that I’m trying my best to listen to my body and challenge it without punishing or breaking it. I know that walking or even resting are equally important parts of achieving balance. The toughest part is reminding myself of that every single day.
​     So, you know what I’m going to do? Close my eyes, take a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth and I’m going to listen to my body. If it feels like doing yoga, then I do yoga. If it feels like walking, then I walk. If it feels like resting, then I rest. It really is that simple. We just have to learn to listen to our inner voices and let the rest go.